CHAPTER I

INTO A SAVAGE REGION

Wildest Albania—Warnings not to attempt to travel there—I decide to go, and take Palok—Prince Nicholas of Montenegro bids us farewell—On the Lake of Scutari—Arrival at Skodra—Passports, rabble, and backsheesh—Photographing the fortress in secret—Treading dangerous ground—Albania the Unknown.

Before leaving London various insurance companies had flatly declined to accept the risk of “accident,” because it was known that I intended visiting Albania.

Indeed, no company in the City would insure me, and at Lloyd’s the premium quoted was exorbitant. This was the reverse of reassuring. Northern Albania I knew to be the wildest and most savage country in the East, and the Accursed Mountains, which I wanted to visit, were held by brigandish tribes, who shot the traveller at sight or held him to ransom. So little is known about them that they had always held a peculiar fascination for me.

I searched through the journals of the Royal Geographical Society for many years past, but found little mention of Northern Albania, while of books of actual travel in that region there were none. These facts had decided me to accept the risks, whatever these might be, and go into those wild, inaccessible mountains which bear the name of Accursed.

Everybody warned me of danger. Friends in England constantly urged me to “take care of myself,” as though that were possible when in the midst of a hostile tribe; and in fact there seemed to be a conspiracy on the part of friends, strangers, and officials to prevent me penetrating the Land of Mystery.

When I mentioned my intention in Cettinje, everyone, as I have already said, held up their hands and raised their eyes. It was sheer madness, they declared. Nobody’s life was worth a moment’s purchase outside the town of Skodra—or Scutari, as it appears on our maps. Outside—beyond Turkish control—well, I should not be allowed to travel a couple of miles before I had a bullet through me from behind a rock at the roadside.

Everybody had some weird or horrible story to tell about the savagery of the Hoti, the Kastrati, the Skreli, and other savage tribes inhabiting those high, misty mountains beyond the Montenegro border. The one or two Albanians—tall, muscular fellows in white felt skullcap, tight white woollen trousers heavily braided with black, and a kind of black bolero with long fringe—whom I had seen in Montenegro were certainly a sinister-looking, forbidding lot. But I had come to the Balkans to investigate and to learn the truth; therefore the more I was urged not to attempt to go into the mountains, the firmer was my determination to do so.

His Royal Highness, Prince Nicholas himself, had at one of the audiences he granted me seriously queried the advisability of undertaking the journey. Almost daily on the Albanian frontier were raids into Montenegrin territory, and the whole border was constantly terrorised by the Albanian bands, who shot the Montenegrins wherever found. Indeed, the market at Podgoritza, where men squatted with loaded rifles over four or five fowls or a basket of apples, was sufficient to tell me the truth; while the daily talk of that town was of fighting with the wild race who live across the border. The Montenegrin hates the Albanian, and has surely good cause to do so. Many a comely Montenegrin maiden—and some of them are exceedingly beautiful—has been captured in those night raids and carried across into Turkish territory, to be heard of no more. And many, too, are the reprisals by the Montenegrins; mostly, however, with serious losses to themselves.

Palok, whom I had engaged as my guide, had, he said, been born in Skodra, or, as we call it, Scutari, which causes it to be confounded with the city on the Bosphorus. He also declared that he was well known there, and the fact that he also spoke Italian caused me to accept his services.

When I asked Fevzi Pasha, the Turkish Minister in Cettinje, for a passport for Skodra, or “Scutari d’Albanie,” as it appears on the _visa_, he granted it, but not without words of caution. “In Scutari you will have nothing to fear,” he said. “I will give you a note to the Governor of the town. But do not go into the country. If you do, you’ll be shot like a dog.”

I thanked him, but had no intention of taking his well-meant advice.

At half-past three one dark morning I took Palok, and we drove out on the road that wound high up across the great lonely mountains to the little town of Ryeka, whence a small steamer plies down the Lake of Scutari to Skodra. The drive was cold and weary, through a barren waste of rocks, but the bright autumn sun was up ere we reached Ryeka, and just as I boarded the big canoe with long, upturned, pointed prow, which takes passengers and baggage down the sluggish stream to the boat at the entrance to the lake, I saw, on the road above, a fine military figure in pale blue, riding a splendid white charger and followed by an officer.

In a moment every head was bared. It was Prince Nicholas, who was staying at his palace at Ryeka, taking his morning ride.

He espied me, pulled up, and shouted down in Italian—

“Hulloa! Good-morning! Then you are off to Albania after all, eh?”

“Yes, Monseigneur,” I responded.

“Did you get my message last night?” he inquired, referring to a confidential matter.

“Thank you, Monseigneur, yes.”

“Very well. Only be careful of yourself, you know, and when you get back, come and tell me all about it.” And, laughing, His Royal Highness waved his hand with a merry “Bon voyage!” and cantered away, while my half a dozen fellow-travellers in gold-braided costumes regarded me in wonder that their Prince should stop and converse with me—a perfect stranger.

Down the silent river, between steep green hills we glided. Choked by the tangle and rot of weeds, it was the haunt of thousands of waterfowl, and, as we passed, the herons rose with a lazy flapping of wings,—a stream that might well be haunted by the fairies, for the water was unruffled and the silence deep and complete.

Boarding the little steamer, the _Nettuno_, lying at the mouth of the river, we were soon out in the great green lake, with the high mountains looming grey in the far distance. As we steamed due south, the barren mountains of Montenegro were soon left behind. At Virpasar and Plavnitza we picked up passengers, a fat Turkish peasant woman carrying two baskets of fowls, and three young Montenegrins, fully armed with rifles and revolvers. Because she was not yet in Turkey, the woman wore no veil; yet in the evening, as soon as Skodra came in sight, she produced her veil, and carefully adjusted it, laughing with me the whole time, and wound it until only her bright dark eyes were visible.

From Virpasar an Italian company is now building a railway to the Montenegrin port of Antivari, so that in a couple of years the lake will be connected with the Adriatic, and form the much-needed trade route for Montenegro. The Servians, indeed, are hoping also to use Antivari as their Adriatic port, and thus be free of the excessive Customs dues and other oppression placed upon them by Austria-Hungary. When in Belgrade, M. Stoyanovitch, the Servian Minister of Commerce, explained to me the several schemes for the construction of a railroad from Krushevatz, in Servia, by way of Novi-Bazar, Ipek, Podgoritza, and Ryeka, to join the Italian line at Virpasar, and so to the Adriatic or to San Giovanni di Medua. Servia must secure a port, and this line, whenever made, will be a most paying concern, for by its extension from Stalacs—on the main Belgrade-Sofia line—to Orsova, it would receive most of the exports of Southern Russia to Western Europe.

The mere handful of lake-side dwellings which now constitutes Virpasar will, ere many years have passed, grow into an important trade centre, and upon the great silent lake, surrounded by those high sheer mountains where the eagle and the pelican are now the only signs of life, big passenger and freight steamers will soon ply. The railway, which must be built ere long, will quickly bring a civilising influence upon Northern Albania; therefore, if one wishes to see it in all its wildness, it must be seen to-day. In another decade the Albanian brigand—the real thing out of the story-book—will be only a matter of history.

The calm, bright day was perfect. The surface of the great lake was like a mirror, and the fringe of giant mountain constantly changed in colour—grey, blue, purple, and rose—as the hours wore on, and the sun sank westward in all the crimson glory of the death of the autumn day.

Now and then, with our rifles, we took pot-shots at the pelicans, but with little result. A young Montenegrin killed one, and the huge bird came down with a great splash into the water. At last, in the falling twilight, we cast anchor at the head of the Boyana River, which empties itself into the lake, and then, boarding another high-prowed canoe, where a Turkish soldier sat over us with a loaded rifle, we were rowed slowly up to the low line of ramshackle buildings, which was our first sight of Skodra.

With our farewell to the _Nettuno_ we had said good-bye to civilisation, as represented by sturdy Montenegro. We were in Albania, the wildest and most turbulent country in the East.

We landed upon some slimy steps amid a perfect babel of shouts. Hundreds of unwashed Turks and Albanians were awaiting us, all shouting in a language of which I understood not one word. Every man, armed and of ferocious aspect, seemed ready to make short work of both Palok and myself. Indeed, so unpleasant is the landing at Skodra, that Palok himself had already sent a message to a friend of his—a typical brigand of the first water—to give the Customs officer a tip, and so make pleasant our path through that dark, evil-smelling hole where the Turks collect their dues. Palok’s friend, whom I only saw on that one occasion, and whose name I could not ascertain, had managed to secure from somewhere a mustard-coloured ramshackle fly, the upholstering of which was in ribbons. The driver, in his white fez, with dirty white baggy trousers and yellow tunic, came forward and saluted me with deep obeisance, while I was explaining to the passport officer—a ragged, consumptive youth—that my name was not “We, Sir Edward Grey.”

The chief of the Customs was a long, very thin, white-fezzed Turk with large silver-mounted pistols in his belt, very tight white trousers, a gold-embroidered jacket, and pointed slippers that turned up at the toes in the most approved style. He was a real live Bey, so Palok told me, but he was not averse to receiving tenpence as a tip. Later, when I left Scutari (or Skodra) again, I gave him ten Austrian crowns, for I had in my bag a couple of thousand cigarettes, which, by Turkish law, are prohibited from leaving the country. His charge for winking at the contravention is five crowns a thousand!

Turkish Custom Houses are weird places, and it is no wonder that the British Ambassador at Constantinople is just now pressing for some reform. Your belongings are not only thoroughly examined and heavily assessed for Customs—if you won’t tip—when you enter Turkish territory, but the same happens when you leave. Woe-betide those who dispense with the services of a discreet dragoman and do not tip. All that you may have bought in Turkey will be found liable to duty. Gold embroideries will be weighed, and anything that has the Sultan’s monogram upon it—as so many embroideries have—will be at once confiscated.

The man in the fez is grave and inexorable. His attitude is as though he would scorn the offer of a bribe and throw you into prison for daring to insult an official of His Imperial Majesty. Yet outside the Custom House he keeps a crafty ragamuffin who is ready to accept a four-franc piece on his behalf, and for that he will pass a thousand pounds’ worth of goods with only a pretence of search! The Custom House at Galata on the Bosphorus is a case in point. There are five officials there who share the spoils from the traveller.

Yes, the land of the Crescent is indeed a quaint country. The corruption of Turkish Customs officials is no doubt due to the frequent non-payment of their stipends. They must live, and do so by accepting bribes. I afterwards spoke to certain high government officials at Constantinople about it, and they admitted that they knew bribery existed extensively, but at present were utterly unable to suppress it.

Over the ramshackle Custom House, a dark hole without a window, frowns a shattered fortress containing one or two antiquated guns, a photograph of which I afterwards obtained surreptitiously, and which appears in these pages. Had I been discovered, I might have spent an unpleasant year or so in a Turkish prison. But even that offence, so heinous in Germany, France, or Austria, I suppose I could easily have expiated with a few piastres of backsheesh. In Turkey you can do anything—if you are prepared to pay.

Upon that filthy crowd around the Custom House at Skodra, upon those crumbling buildings, upon that old white fortress, upon the tower of Skodra itself, a mile away, the centuries of progress have made no impression. Here is the country of a mediæval people, the life of an age long ago past and forgotten.

While our fellow-travellers were squabbling, arguing, shouting, and cursing the wild, dirty mob who now filled the Custom House, we, with our baggage—canvas bags, specially made to sling on mules for mountain travelling—ascended into the mustard-coloured conveyance and were driven along a country lane, very English in its appearance, with bramble hedgerows and ditches; yet the high, thin minaret of a mosque before us, and the carefully latticed windows of a house, preventing the women-folk from being seen from the roadway, and giving the place an air of mystery, showed us to be in the land of His Majesty the Sultan—in Albania the Unknown.